DHS drones equipped to eavesdrop on Americans

The US Department of Homeland Security already has an arsenal of drones to be deployed for whatever the agency deems fit, but the actual capabilities of those vehicles exceed what many Americans may expect.

The unmanned drones being used inside of the United States right
now can’t shoot Hellfire missiles like their overseas counterparts.
They can, however, conduct surveillance, intercept communications
and even determine whether or not a person thousands of feet below
the aircraft is armed.

The latest revelation comes courtesy of a DHS document that was
recently obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or
EPIC, through a Freedom of Information Act
request. After analyzing a partially-redacted drone “performance
specification” file received through their FOIA plea, EPIC said
that records indicate “the Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection is operating drones in the United States capable of
intercepting electronic communications.”

Of the ten Predator B drones currently maintained by the agency,
EPIC adds that the document confirms that those aircraft “have
the capacity to recognize and identify a person on the
ground.”

“The records obtained by EPIC raise questions about the
agency's compliance with federal privacy laws and the scope of
domestic surveillance,” the center writes on their website this
week.

Speaking to
CNet, EPIC’s Open Government Project director, Ginger McCall,
says the discovery shows just how dangerous drones could be to the
privacy of the millions of Americans who could have drones overhead
right this moment.

"The documents clearly evidence that the Department of
Homeland Security is developing drones with signals interception
technology and the capability to identify people on the
ground," McCall says. "This allows for invasive
surveillance, including potential communications surveillance, that
could run afoul of federal privacy laws."

Since EPIC published their FOID’d documents last week, Cnet has
managed to scrounge up an unredacted copy that outlines what the
DHS was looking for in drones when the report was written in 2010.
Specifically, the performance specifications note that while the
DHS is not implementing drones for eavesdropping on America right
now, “Further tasks, such as communication relay and
interception, although not yet evaluated in the field, are assessed
to also be best performed” by the unmanned aerial vehicles.

Additionally, DHS drones must “be capable of identifying a standing human
being at night as likely armed or not” and “be capable of marking a
target into a retrievable database.” No information is given
as to what database that refers to, but a Homeland Security
official speaking on condition of anonymity tells DHS that the
drones lack — for now, at least — the ability to read a subject’s
face to find out who they are.

“The drones are able to identify whether movement on the
ground comes from a human or an animal, but that they do not
perform facial recognition,” Cnet reporter Declan McCullagh
says the DHS source’s claims.

"Any potential deployment of such technology in the future
would be implemented in full consideration of civil rights, civil
liberties, and privacy interests and in a manner consistent with
the law and long standing law enforcement practices,” the
source adds.

The Homeland Security department’s drones are currently used to
allow federal officials to monitor any criminal activity on
America’s borders to the north and south. As RT reported
recently, however, a 2012 Supreme Court ruling determined that the
government can conduct border patrol operations within 100 miles of
an international crossing. By that logic, the approximately 200
million Americans residing within that parameter are subject to
Border Patrol searches and, perhaps soon enough, surveillance
drones.